Category Archives: Art Beads and Components

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I’ve been adding some heart shaped pendants to my shop, because Valentines Day is quickly approaching. I’m not much into the traditional pink and bright red, but I did make one pink heart because I know that many of you are fans of that color. The heart is lightly textured and the pink glaze has faint flecks of blue in it. One of Pantone’s 2016 Spring Colors is Rose Quartz Pink. This heart fits the bill nicely!

Sticking with the Pantone theme a bit longer, I’ve created a heart that is half Rose Quartz Pink and half Serenity Blue, (another Pantone color for 2016). I rather like this one and hope to have time to make other “half ‘n half” hearts.

I’m not a big fan of the bright, fire engine red that often shows up in heart designs, but I do love brick red. In fact, as I am writing this, I realize that I’m wearing a brick red shirt layered over a navy blue tee, today. I think I’ll need a heart to go with it! The heart at the top of today’s post would work, or the one below.

Let’s kick off the New Year with an awesome sales event! Head over to my shop make your selection and then use the coupon code WELCOME2016 when you check out. You’ll save yourself 25%, as my thank you gift to you for an awesome 2015.

Happy Day of the Dead!

Several years my husband and I were in Oaxaca, Mexico during the Day of the Dead celebration. And Oaxaca celebrated this holiday in a big way!

Dia de los Muertos was originally an Aztec celebration of the lives of those who had died. The Spanish conquerors tried to put an end to the holiday, but were not successful, (thank goodness). Over time el Dia de los Muertos merged with the Catholic All-Saints day and All-Souls day on November 1st and 2nd. The contemporary celebration melds aspects of Aztec ritual with Christian traditions and contemporary life.

Sugar Skulls and Marigolds

Sugar Skulls in Oaxaca

We started seeing sugar skulls in the markets about a week or 2 before the Day of the Dead celebration. Apparently the Catholic friars taught the Mexicans how to make decorations from an ingredient that was abundant and affordable: sugar. Sugar Skulls and other items are often used to decorate the ofrendas on Dia de los Muertos. As in the picture below, marigolds also decorate small home altars like this, as well as large public displays. The bright orange marigolds are said to guide the spirits of the deceased, back to their earthly homes, as they visit their loved ones.

Oferendas with sugar skulls

Day of the Dead Necklace

I wanted to design a Day of the Dead necklace that would reflect these traditions, with respect and authenticity. So I started with an awesome, bronze clay sugar skull by my friend Staci Smith.

I needed some beads to represent the marigolds and these were perfect!

Day Of the Dead Necklace with Marigold beads.

I wired a “marigold” beneath the chin of the sugar skull and dangled 7 other from a strand of black, gray and silver “peanut beads”.

I topped the sugar skull with a dark lilac handmade ceramic bead by Mary Hubbard, of White Clover Kiln and then added a strand of purple, recycled sari silk.

Our Earrings Everyday challenge for October is to create a pair of earrings to go with one of these outfits from designer Monique Lhuillier, as seen during the fall New York Fashion Week.

I especially identified with the center outfit, because although I’m at least twice as wide as the model, the dress I wore to my daughter’s wedding last month, was apparently on trend, as far as the lace and color.

This is kind of a goofy picture, but it shows the dress pretty well. I did the flowers for my daughter’s wedding. I’m holding the bridal bouquet here, while the bridesmaids were cheering me with their flowers. lol

The earrings I made are too casual for any of these dresses, but the dresses were definitely my inspiration. I picked up the lace theme of the left and center dresses by using some flowered lace to impress into my stoneware. And while I was at it, I made the pendants in several colors, in addition to the color of the inspiration . I chose a much lighter shade of plum than the dresses are, because I wanted the lace pattern to show through clearly (you can see that the lace doesn’t show up as clearly on the dark teal pendants),

Here are the earrings I then made. As you can see, I picked up the darker, plumy tones in the flower dangles. I kept the earring design very simple because the ceramic pieces are fairly large and I didn’t want to add additional length or weight.

To be truthful, these ceramic pieces turned out larger than I had somehow envisioned them to be (the ceramic pieces, without the ear wires, are just shy of 1.5 inches). If you like large earrings and are comfortable with some weight in your ears, well then OK! But I decided to list the ceramic pieces as pendants in my shop.

Other than having accidentally super-sized them, I’m very pleased with how they turned out and I found this challenge to be especially inspiring because it played well with my mother-of-the-bride dress. You can find these earring charms – uh-hum – pendants in the ceramics section of my shop.

Life has been pretty hectic since we returned from Oaxaca and I haven’t had much time to keep current on this blog. Only a few days after our return, my father was hospitalized and then needed some convalescence time. Fortunately he is fine now and celebrated his 88th birthday this week. I got bronchitis and needed a week or so to recover. And then my brother and sister-in-law came to visit us for 10 days.

My sister-in-law is very artistic and we had fun playing with clay during her visit. I blogged about her creations here and here. If you are curious about the process involved in the creation of ceramic pendants, then you’ll find these 2 posts especially interesting. Here’s a picture of my sister-in-law forming some of her pendants.

I also took her to Shipwreck Beads, which claims to have the world’s largest selection of beads. It only about a 15 minute drive from my house!

Here’s what she came home with.

And of course, not wanting to be left out😉 I came home with a few goodies too!

The rondells are Cherry Creek jasper and the other 2 stands are very cool glass beads that nest together and create a great texture.

We spent some time in Seattle and I went crazy photographing the gorgeous flowers in Pike Place Market, but I’ll save that for another post.

We’re back to our normal routines now and I’ve had time to resume working with clay. I’ll have some results soon, which I will share with you here.

So that’s what’s happening with me. Hope all is well in your world too.

Iris Bracelet

This month’s components are beautiful beaded beads by Sue Kennedy ofSue Beads. I love her beaded beads and her color choices!

Sue’s beaded beads are an obvious choice for earrings, but this time I decided to switch it up a bit and make a bracelet.

I paired Sue’s bead with a lampwork bead by my friends at Beads and Botanicals. and a pretty matte bead with light blue stripes.

I enjoy making bracelets that go from one strand to multi-strands and that was my approach here. When I started my Facebook Destash Group several weeks ago, I realized that I’d been neglecting my gemstone collection, so I chose some amethysts and pearls for the for the first two strands.

Although I rarely use Swarovski crystals any more, they were exactly what this bracelet called for in the third strand.

While I like each strand to be different, I try to tie them all together with some repeating components, in this case, I have light purple seed beads and small, blue cubes in every strand.

At this point, I knew that my usual brass or copper clasps were not going to work at all for this bracelet. Instead I selected a beautiful, hammer textured sterling silver toggle clasp. Ooo, so lovely!

When I was a kid, I had a little garden plot where I grew purple irises. They made me happy and so does this “Iris Bracelet“.

Check out my new life-sized wrist model! This is her début! Does she help you picture how the bracelet would look on you? I hope so.

Its taken me awhile to transition back to my normal routine here in the states (I just returned from 3 months in Oaxaca, Mexico). I’ve picked up the old routines again, gradually. I’m now back to doing my adult literacy tutoring on Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons. Hubs and I have date night on Fridays. We’ve got books checked out from the library etc. When we returned home, we found that our water heater was leaking, so we’ve gotten that fixed. We’ve caught up on laundry and I spent some time cleaning up my studio.

I’ve joined a group that is participating in a webinar series called “set yo space“. It will focus on how to create an inviting studio space that inspires us to create, rather than having a space that paralyzes our muse. I’ll write more about that, once we get going next week.

It’s a beautiful day in the Pacific Northwest. Flowers are blooming, the sun is shining and I feel happy. So I decided that a good name for the new earrings would be “Springtime Celebration”. Its how I feel.

The shield-shaped copper pieces were created by my good friend Kristi Bowman. She colored them in the most amazing jewel-tones. Love! I topped them with some silver lined, turquoise glass beads and wove some hand-dyed ribbon above them.

Kristi shared some her customer’s recent work on her blog today, including these earrings. You should check her blog post out. All the jewelry is just yummy!